Abbas ibn Firnas

Abu al-Qasim Abbas ibn Firnas ibn

Wirdas al-Takurini (809–887 A.D.), also
known as Abbas ibn Firnas (Arabic: ‫ﻋﺒﺎس‬
‫)ﺑﻦ ﻓﺮﻧﺎس‬, was an Andalusian
polymath:[1][2] an inventor, physician,
chemist, engineer, Andalusian musician,
and Arabic-language poet.[2] Of Berber
descent,[3] he was born in Izn-Rand
Onda, Al-Andalus (today's Ronda, Spain),
lived in the Emirate of Córdoba, and is
reputed to have attempted flight.[4][5]
 Abbas ibn Firnas
Other names Abu l-Qāsim Abbās ibn
Firnās, Armen Firman

Personal

Born 810
Izn-Rand Onda
(Ronda), Al-Andalus

Died 887
Córdoba

Religion Islam

Nationality Andalusian (actual

Spain)

Ethnicity Berber

Era Islamic Golden Age

Main interest(s) Medicine, astronomy,

 engineering
Other names Abu l-Qāsim Abbās ibn
Firnās, Armen Firman

The crater Ibn Firnas on the Moon is

named in his honor, as well as the Ibn
Firnas Airport in Baghdad and one of the
bridges over the Guadalquivir river in
Córdoba.

Work
Abbas Ibn Firnas designed a water clock
called al-Maqata, devised a means of
manufacturing colorless glass, invented
various glass planispheres, made
corrective lenses ("reading stones"),
devised a chain of rings that could be
used to simulate the motions of the
planets and stars, and developed a
process for cutting rock crystal that
allowed Spain to cease exporting quartz
to Egypt to be cut.[4][5]

Aviation
Some seven centuries after the death of
Firnas, the Algerian historian Ahmed
Mohammed al-Maqqari (d. 1632) wrote a
description of Firnas that included the
following:[6]
Among other very curious
experiments which he made, one
is his trying to fly. He covered
himself with feathers for the
purpose, attached a couple of
wings to his body, and, getting on
an eminence, flung himself down
into the air, when according to
the testimony of several
trustworthy writers who
witnessed the performance, he
flew a considerable distance, as if
he had been a bird, but, in
alighting again on the place
 whence he had started, his back
was very much hurt, for not
knowing that birds when they
alight come down upon their
tails, he forgot to provide himself
with one.[5]

Al-Maqqari is said to have used in his

history works "many early sources no
longer extant", but in the case of Firnas,
he does not cite his sources for the
details of the reputed flight, though he
does claim that one verse in a 9th-
century Arab poem is actually an allusion
to Firnas's flight. The poem was written
by Mu'min ibn Said, a court poet of
Córdoba under Muhammad I (d. 886),
who was acquainted with and usually
critical of Ibn Firnas.[5] The pertinent
verse runs: "He flew faster than the
phoenix in his flight when he dressed his
body in the feathers of a vulture."[6] No
other surviving sources refer to the
event.[7]

It has been suggested that Ibn Firnas's

attempt at glider flight might have
inspired the attempt by Eilmer of
Malmesbury between 1000 and 1010 in
England,[8] but there is no evidence
supporting this hypothesis.[5]
Armen Firman
Armen Firman may be the Latinized name
of Abbas Ibn Firnas.[9]

According to some secondary sources,

about 20 years before Ibn Firnas
attempted to fly he may have witnessed
Firman as he wrapped himself in a loose
cloak stiffened with wooden struts and
jumped from a tower in Córdoba,
intending to use the garment as wings on
which he could glide. The alleged attempt
at flight was unsuccessful, but the
garment slowed his fall enough that he
only sustained minor injuries.[4]
However, there is no reference to Armen
Firman in other secondary sources, all of
which deal exhaustively with Ibn Firnas'
flight attempt.[5][10][11] Armen Firman is
not mentioned in al-Maqqari's account.[4]

As this story was recorded only in a

single primary source, al-Maqqari,[5] and
since Firman's jump is said to have been
Ibn Firnas' source of inspiration,[4] the
lack of any mention of Firman in al-
Maqqari's account may point to
synthesis, the tower jump later confused
with Ibn Firnas' gliding attempt in
secondary writings.[4]
See also
Book: Aviation

Hezârfen Ahmed Çelebi

History of aviation
Ismail ibn Hammad al-Jawhari
Lagâri Hasan Çelebi
List of inventions in the medieval
Islamic world
Timeline of science and technology in
the Islamic world

References
1. "Ibn Firnas ('Abbâs)" by Ahmed
Djebbar, Dictionnaire culturel des
science, by Collective under the direction
of Nicolas Witkowski, Du Regard
Editions, 2003, ISBN 2-84105-128-5.
2. Lynn Townsend White, Jr. (Spring,
1961). "Eilmer of Malmesbury, an
Eleventh Century Aviator: A Case Study
of Technological Innovation, Its Context
and Tradition", Technology and Culture 2
(2), p. 97-111 [100]:

"Ibn Firnas was a polymath: a

physician, a rather bad poet, the
first to make glass from stones
(quartz), a student of music, and
inventor of some sort of
metronome."
3. Lévi-Provençal, E. "ʿAbbās b. Firnās" .
In Bearman, P.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth,
C.E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W.P.
Encyclopaedia of Islam. 1 (2nd ed.). Brill
publishers. p. 11.
4. John H. Lienhard (2004). " 'Abbas Ibn
Firnas". The Engines of Our Ingenuity.
Episode 1910. Transcript . NPR. KUHF-
FM Houston.
5. Lynn Townsend White, Jr. (Spring,
1961). "Eilmer of Malmesbury, an
Eleventh Century Aviator: A Case Study
of Technological Innovation, Its Context
and Tradition", Technology and Culture 2
(2), p. 97-111 [100f.]
6. Lynn Townsend White, Jr. (Spring,
1961). "Eilmer of Malmesbury, an
Eleventh Century Aviator: A Case Study
of Technological Innovation, Its Context
and Tradition", Technology and Culture 2
(2), p. 97-111 [101]
7. Lynn Townsend White, Jr. (Spring,
1961). "Eilmer of Malmesbury, an
Eleventh Century Aviator: A Case Study
of Technological Innovation, Its Context
and Tradition", Technology and Culture 2
(2), p. 97-111 [101]:

The Moroccan historian al-

Maqqari, who died in 1632 A.D.
but who used many early sources
no longer extant, tells of a certain
Abu'l Qasim 'Abbas b. Firnas who
lived in Cordoba in the later ninth
century. […] No modern historian
can be satisfied with a source
written 750 years after the event,
and it is astonishing that, if
indeed several eye-witnesses
recorded Firnas's flight, no
mention of it independent of al-
Maqqari has survived. Yet al-
Maqqari cites a contemporary
poem by Mu'min b. Said, a minor
court poet of Cordoba under
Muhammad I (d. 886 A.D.),
which appears to refer to this
flight and which has the greater
evidential value because Mu'min
did not like b. Firnas: he
criticized one of his metaphors
and disapproved his artificial
thunder. […] Although the
evidence is slender, we must
conclude that b. Firnas was the
first man to fly successfully, and
that he has priority over Eilmer
for this honor. But it is not
necessary to assume that Eilmer
needed foreign stimulus to build
his wings. Anglo-Saxon England
in his time provided an
atmosphere conducive to
 originality, perhaps particularly
in technology.

8. Lienhard, John H. (1988). "The Flying

Monk" . University of Houston. Retrieved
2015-02-06.
9. Arabic and Islamic Names of the Moon
Craters MuslimHeritage 9-28-07
10. Terias, Elias, "Sobre el vuelo de
Abbas Ibn Firnas", Al-Andalus, Vol. 29,
No. 2 (1964), p. 365–369
11. Lévi-Provençal, E. "ʿAbbās b. Firnās b.
Wardūs, Abu 'l-Ḳāsim." Encyclopaedia of
Islam, 2nd edition, Edited by: P.
Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E.O. Bosworth,
E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs, 2009

Sources
J. Vernet, Abbas Ibn Firnas. Dictionary
of Scientific Biography (C.C. Gilespie,
ed.) Vol. I, New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1970–1980. pg. 5.
Lynn Townsend White, Jr. (Spring,
1961). "Eilmer of Malmesbury, an
Eleventh Century Aviator: A Case Study
of Technological Innovation, Its
Context and Tradition", Technology
 and Culture 2 (2), p. 97–111 [100f.],
doi:10.2307/3101411 .
Salim T.S. Al-Hassani (ed.), Elisabeth
Woodcock (au.), and Rabah Saoud
(au.). 2006. 1001 Inventions. Muslim
Heritage in Our World. Manchester:
Foundation for Science, Technology
and Civilisation. See pages 308–313.
(ISBN 978-0-9555035-0-4)
Zaheer, Syed Iqbal. An Educational
Encyclopedia of Islam. Iqra Welfare
Trust. p. 1280. ISBN 9786039000440.

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